After spending many months last year searching for a W110, I now have my second in as many months!

This little beasty was listed on ebay and located just half an hour from me, so I had to have a look! It looked horrible in the photos and I was imagining a rusted out heap with a falcon motor conversion – but I was surprised at how good it turned out to be and I ended up making an offer which the seller accepted, and he kindly removed it from ebay and even dropped it off to me that night on his flatbed. The body is fantastically straight, there is some small rust in the corners of some of the doors – however the rest of the car is largely rust-free – I even took my jack and lifted up all four corners and poked and prodded around underneath for about 20mins – no crunching and no evidence of nasty structural rot – so body wise it is an easy fix which I will try and do myself.

I wasn’t sure what I would find when I lifted the bonnet, but it has been converted to a 220SE M127 engine with automatic trans – the IP has been removed and blanked off and a facet cube pump and twin zeniths have been installed – so a bit of a Frankenstein type conversion. Correct benz type mountings have been used for the motor, but the rest of it needs a solid tidy up under there.

The interior is excellent, with an uncracked dash, door cards like new and thanks to some sheepskin seat covers, excellent MB tex seats – worst bit is that it needs new carpets which I will do.

That auto shifter is ugly as though, I think it's from a Datsun 120Y - the clutch pedal & MC have not even been removed!

So, the plans for this car are to clean up and sort out the bits related to the conversion that were half-done, then tidy it up and get it back on the road to replace my 450SE as tow car/daily drive. Seeing as it has already been modified to such an extent, I’m not going to worry about originality and am aiming to keep making discreet, under the surface mods to improve its drivability, reliability, comfort and performance – sort of a ‘retro-tech’ Finnie that looks essentially standard from the outside.

Aside from the obvious cleaning and rust repairs, my initial thoughts are:
- New 2.5” exhaust
- Weber carby conversion
- New carpets and soundproofing throughout
- Centre console and shifter mechanism from a W114 or later model benz (or custom centre console)
- Something new in the wheels/tyres department – tyres are shot and I can imagine that white painted wheels would be a pain to keep clean with front discs.

My biggest concern is how the motor will run – blanking off the IP and fitting zeniths from a M180 should work fine in theory, but is there any obvious problem that any of you can see with this setup that will seriously affect the way the motor runs? At the end of the day, I assume it would be easy to fit another M180 (or even a 2.8L M130? – that would be a nice performance upgrade! ) if I needed to.

Anyway, it’s somewhat of a blank canvas for now, so I’d like to throw the floor open to suggestions and ideas for mods and improvements – if it’s ok with the forum moderators I’ll keep all the progress and updates to this one thread so we can all see how it evolves!

Looking forward to getting my all-Fintail fleet up and running! So whataya think? Let's hear your thoughts so we can bring this 200D back to life as a fire-breathing modernised sleeper!

Last edited by pastelgrey300D on Tue 07 Aug, 2012 12:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Now that is seriously weird ! but i have seen others like it such as a 220SE with a 250 injection short block with a 220SE head and injectors connected .It also had the 220SE flywheel coupler ..can you say " vibration" ??.
Tjhat engine will run but not especailly well as the intake runners are too short for the cam design .I have had that before too ...
If it were mine I would get a SE manifold ( i may have one) and make up a megasquirt ,Getting rid of the carbs and installing a EDIS getting rid of the ignition. Both things wont make a road burner but will make for a nice running car that could even be economical to run. And shouldn't cost anymore than a weber kit.http://www.megasquirt.info
Shame they cut that rare rubber front mat too. What is the chassis number? it may be close to these two i have here. One of mine has the Oz assembly number of A180.

Oh Dave, welcome to the club! There is no logic to the disease is there?
It seems like people in South Oz like cobbling together old benzes - my white one from there was a 220SE with a 220S motor with a 250S head and lots of dodgy things done to it as well.
But thankfully noone ever used any Datto 180B parts in it - man that is ugly!
If you go down the 280S route, there are a few things to do like shorten the tail shaft, some easy wiring for the trans, and a longer hybrid speedo cable, W108 trans crossmember and a few other simple things that elude me at the moment. What are you planning to tow with it?
I just noticed that your steering column is like a hybrid of a W111 and W108 - if anyone out there has one of these lying around, I would love to get hold of it as the nI could fit my Nardi wheel with a standard hub.
Cheers, Drew

Chassis no is 110 110 20 3525xx – from looking at the heckflosse.nl site the chassis numbers stopped at 387263 and there were 68399 cars produced in 67 (579 in 68) – so without really knowing or having a datacard I presume that the car was built in the later half of 67 (plus it has the W108 steering wheel, door handles & switchgear). The only option code on the body plate is 625 (version for Aus) – so it looks to be a fully imported, aussie delivered car – that SA rego plate however is from the early 70s so no idea where it first started out.

The megasquirt option is very appealing and I’d like to give it a go – although from reading Alistair’s post on his conversion on a M116, it is a lot of work – especially seeing that I don’t already have the injectors, flow meter etc already on the engine. I have some other options I’m looking at for the interim but I think the best route would be to slowly build up all the separate components for the MS as a long term project otherwise I’m afraid the car would be off the road for too long!

Benzfan, I bought the car from a bloke in Willaston who had been given it in lieu of payment for a job he had done (fitter & turner) – was a very nice bloke who also had a W123 300D and a W202 diesel as his daily – all running on biodiesel that he makes himself – someone in the club showed me a photo of a white 200D that someone in the Riverland was trying to sell a few years back and I’m pretty sure this is the same car as the faded number plate looks familiar – so it might have been in storage up there but I don’t really know.

Drew, cheers for the advice re the 280s conversion, I was hoping it would more or less bolt straight up – the only towing I’ll be doing is the odd occasion every few months where I need to move furniture etc with my borrowed 150kg 6x4 trailer, so I won’t be towing cars or trailer loads of bricks etc – only very occasional light towing – I guess the 450SE is really overkill in that respect!

it's a lot later than either of the two I have here as they have Finny columns and steering wheels etc. My wagon was sold new in Inverleigh where the same family still live and run a sheep station. I know this because the books were still in the glovebox and the wonders of the internet showed me that family still run the same farm.
You could get rid of the carbs completely and fit LPG . A pair of modern gas mixers instead of the carbs would be a great idea.OR ,get the proper manifold and fit a gas mixer to the front instead of the throttle body.
I had a pretty good set up on a 3.5 V8 which used a vacuum controlled valve from a Ford Falcon taxi. It's not a good system but better than the gas ring that the Impco things use.
The big plus is that you get a rebate from the pollies!

Bugger! Anyone else having this problem where you log on, type a reply to a message, maybe taking a while to do it and then hit send only to be told you need to log on to reply to messages, hit back and message is gone or log in and you have lost it. Keeps happening and most times I copy before I press anything...... except that time!!

Short version because I am tired now! I was thinking lpg and you should check out the system on my 250 - works fantastically and very cheap and simple to do. Do you think it has been registered with that engine in it? Just thinking that Regency can be a pain. Cubes is usually the cheapest HP and flexibility, so my thoughts went to a 280 and the M110 is interesting esp with megasuirt. But keeping it simple lpg seems the easiest. And I was thinking manual trans too. Anyway, chat to you tomorrow and you should have a drive of my 280 when you are here. And also chat about what bits I have that might help.

I went with EDIS on my 6.3 for simplicity sake and it's boring..I haven't touched it since I installed it 5 years ago. Could never say that about points.
Because My MFI is sick (sticking rack) I am now seriously considering ,again, LPG injection as is used overseas but almost unknown in OZ . I want to make more power with out comprising the situation . Old style LPG setups common here are real horsepower losers.

I get that too Craig, I now type my long posts/replies in word and then paste them in (also word iz gud cos it hylites mye spelleng mistayx ) or ctr+A (Select all) and copy to the clipboard before pressing the send button so you can paste the text back in if you lose it.

LPG sounds good too - fuel economy is not really an issue as I catch the train to work 5 days a week - although I do a lot of driving on the weekends and in a few years time my living/work situation may change and I might need a car to drive to work everyday. I like the idea of the modern gas mixer replacing the throttle body, I think that would be a very tidy installation.

Mercmad, I saw your post re: the manifold from my 220SE wreck - but I'm concerned that it might not fit because it is the early type manifold and the 200D has the later type brake booster - but having said that I could use the pieces that bolt to the engine and make up a custom intake manifold (with injector bungs for a future MS installation ) to bolt to those. Or I could just search for a manifold from a later 220SE...

Going up to Craigs this arvo to have a look at his LPG cars and get some inspiration...

Good to see another 190 being loved! I'll be keeping an eye on that thread for sure!

As for that Red 200D, what a stunner! A nice little sleeper - without seeing the pentas there isn't much to give away what lies beneath - is this what you have in store for your motorless W110 200 Ron??!! (I'd lose the tennis ball on the towbar tho! )

Likewise Ron, great to meet you and see all the projects in the flesh that we've been seeing and discussing online for so long! It's been a fantastic weekend full of automotive eye candy, any more and I'll be sitting here convulsing and frothing at the mouth from sensory overload!

The visit down the road ( ) was a real treat and has inspired me to really tidy up the engine bays on all my Finnies, but geez, I don't think I could ever afford Wolf!

Time to start sending off bags of parts to the electroplaters and powdercoaters!

pastelgrey300D wrote:I get that too Craig, I now type my long posts/replies in word and then paste them in (also word iz gud cos it hylites mye spelleng mistayx ) or ctr+A (Select all) and copy to the clipboard before pressing the send button so you can paste the text back in if you lose it.

LPG sounds good too - fuel economy is not really an issue as I catch the train to work 5 days a week - although I do a lot of driving on the weekends and in a few years time my living/work situation may change and I might need a car to drive to work everyday. I like the idea of the modern gas mixer replacing the throttle body, I think that would be a very tidy installation.

Mercmad, I saw your post re: the manifold from my 220SE wreck - but I'm concerned that it might not fit because it is the early type manifold and the 200D has the later type brake booster - but having said that I could use the pieces that bolt to the engine and make up a custom intake manifold (with injector bungs for a future MS installation ) to bolt to those. Or I could just search for a manifold from a later 220SE...

Going up to Craigs this arvo to have a look at his LPG cars and get some inspiration...

I have a late 280SE/SL intake manifold which should fit as it has the shorter plenum chamber. Yours for the cost of postage if it would be useful for an LPG conversion. I forgot I had any so I could have given you one to take with you the other day.

Thanks very much for the offer Ron, give me a week or two and I'll send you a PM to sort it out - my suitcase was chockers as it was anyway!

Did make a little progress yesterday, flushed the fuel lines and finally managed to the motor running for a brief period (had to hotwire it ) - with a little squirt of fuel down the carbs it fired right up and the motor was running a lot smoother than i expected - so smiles all round!

There is still a lot of work to be done though as coolant was pissing out from the top hose (just sitting on there loose) and I noticed that after a minute or so of running the car would start to smoke and run rough - after checking the oil I found that the oil level was HALFWAY up the length of the dipstick - so the sump has been seriously overfilled and I reckon oil is getting into the combustion chambers and fouling the plugs. Plus there is petrol leaking from almost every hose and from around the carbs in various places - so I need to spend some time fixing leaks and replacing hoses/gaskets.

I was wracking my brain trying to remember what the variable gas mixer was called that i had on my 3.5. it's an Airod made in Australia ,years ago, and not actually available any more. But these are miles better than the carb or gas ring set ups you see on forklifts etc .They work with a throttle body and as the throttle is opened the vacuum draws the valve open feeding more gas. These are the people who made them and i did hear that they have few left on the shelf. http://www.airod.com.au/frameset.htm
A lot of guys who work over Falcons fit them to gas only cars to get a positive power increase.On my 3.5 it was fitted by turning the throttle body entrance on the lathe to form a lip and the mixer was simply sat on top . if there was a backfire ,it simply blew the mixer off without damaging anything. if an engine runs too lean when cold it will backfire through the intake and LPG will back fire spectacularly

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Fantastic! Thanks Rod, I'll have to drop them an email. I know the setup would have been different for the 3.5 - and this is probably a very amateurish question but would the variable mixer go before the throttle body or after? I.e. between the air filter and the throttle body?

Hopefully their warehouse hasn't been damaged by all the people rioting at the nearby detention centre....

The throttle stays where it normally lives and the mixer fits on the front of that so when you floor it,the air passing through (passing wind=gas) sucks the valve open letting gas in. Starting from cold is a hassle but today you can get evaporators ( the thing that heats the Liquid gas to make gas..., ) that have a cold start feature.
The trick is to buy a second hand tank,get it tested and recertified and trawl ebay etc to get the evaporator and valves etc as cheap as you can. Get the installation certified then claim the rebate back. With a bit of skill and rat cunning you should be able to make money .

Re that red 110 above - I think that tough/street look with later model rims can actually suit the smaller model finnies like in that case, but it looks an abomination on the 111's. The 111 lowered (though impractical/possibly unsafe mechanically) with wire wheels and low profile tyres can look good, but not mags.

My in-hex socket set arrived last week so this morning I set about draining the oil. I was out and about today so got up first thing, cracked the sump plug and let it drain so that it would be draining all day. Last week I went to supercheap auto to buy an oil drain pan - because I could tell from the dipstick that the sump had been seriously overfilled I needed something with a bigger capacity (my regular oil drain pan is a bush-mechanics inspired old 6L oil bottle with the front cut out). So I bought a 15L drain pan - when I left home this morning the pan was nearly full (less than an inch from the top) - more than double the normal oil capacity - no wonder it was so smoky!

... but when I returned home at around 5pm, this was the result...

leaky.jpg

There was a small hairline crack in the bottom corner of the drain pan which had allowed 12 or so litres of oil out into my carport - admittedly it could've been worse if I'd decided to do this on my driveway or lawn (although according to project mayhem you can use old motor oil to fertilise your lawn ) - at least I can just use a shovel to scoop up all the mucky stuff and dispose of it ... stupid old me for assuming that my that my brand new oil drain pan was actually going to do what it was meant to do and retain whatever oil was put into there...

you buy stuff at supercheap dont expect quality . since when does old oil fertilize the lawn ? according to greenpeace ,oil spills will change the earths temperature so that the polar bears will be too hot to breed with the whales and we will all have to vote labor and cool the earth down again so we can marry gays in tasmania.
BTW i know someone with a V8 powered black finny that has a lot of oil in it too.

Remind me of changing oil years back in my little Austin Healy Frogeye..Installed cartridge filter housing, filled with nice new oil..started her up, eyes glued to oil pressure gauge...after 20 seconds no oil pressure, switched off and leant over the side to see deep pool of new oil rapidly spreading out fom under car, had not seated cartridge filter bowl properly straight into engine housing..amazed at how much she pumped out in that time

I had a customer once who objected to the cost of a service on his Mk2 Cortina . So he did his own,changed the oil,fitted a new filter etc. The next day he comes past the shop and the engine seizes solid right in front of us. He hadn't removed the old seal and all the oil pumped out between his house and out workshop. We repaired the engine but we had sent the short block off to get rebuilt to save time. When I went to start it, it was still seized. The block had been twisted when the crank seized. I have never seen that happen since as most people will stop a car when the noise gets too great from the front.

Mercmad wrote:. since when does old oil fertilize the lawn ? according to greenpeace ,oil spills will change the earths temperature so that the polar bears will be too hot to breed with the whales and we will all have to vote labor and cool the earth down again so we can marry gays in tasmania.

Do we have a post of the month award? This one is in the lead so far.

Inaugural OZBENZ national meet this September, all welcome to attend. https://ozbenz.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=25165

drew56cus wrote:How can different tail lights and a slightly longer nose make that much of a difference as to how mags look on a car? !!!

In exactly the way that car shows the difference Drew. Put the same wheels on a W111 - it won't work. It's been attempted and looks like an FB Holden with Cheviots or Jelly Beans. Gross.

It's the other differences that contribute as well - the simpler bumpers of the 110, the different headlights and significantly more sparing trim. Seemingly small differences can make large aesthetic impacts on style choices, and we all have different ideas about what those are.

A Ford Anglia can be made to look tough this way, an FC Holden can be made to look tough this way, a 110 can be made to look tough this way.

IMHO - a W111 sedan can not. Here's your flag back.

Dweezil wrote:
FWIW, I think of 110 and 111 sedans as different kettles of aesthetic fish.

The slightest things can set one off. I get DEEPLY offended by driving lights on the side of W111 coupes and cabs. Couldn't tell you why exactly, they're just little lights.
Dweezil

Someone get me some Penta's and I will bolt them on my black car, take a shot at the same angle and I bet it looks tough. The only visible difference would be a bumper overrider instead of a little chrome strip on the back, and different tail light. You wouldn't see the headlights and would be hard pressed to tell the difference in nose length. I reckon colour and stance have much more of an impact on the look than a bit of bling. Anyway, that is what is good about cars, there are all different opinions. Otherwise every car show would look the same (even a '57 chev gets tiring when there is row after row of them).

Whilst on 110's, I was talking to a guy this week in UK and he told me how he and his mates grabbed a 110, and shoehorned a 6.3 drivetrain into it. His comment was "It was fun, but a little silly"!!

An M100 will fit in a W110 (a later one especially with the bigger tunnel) but the water pump will definitely be hanging out over the front bumper.
6.3's in W113's is where it's at ,there is one in the Uk actually.

Mercmad wrote:An M100 will fit in a W110 (a later one especially with the bigger tunnel) but the water pump will definitely be hanging out over the front bumper.
6.3's in W113's is where it's at ,there is one in the Uk actually.

Like this one?? (which is in Germany)

DSCN0267.jpg

DSCN0268.jpg

DSCN0265.jpg

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Inaugural OZBENZ national meet this September, all welcome to attend. https://ozbenz.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=25165

I think that particular one belonged to a German industrial magnate who had a huge expensive collection of mercedes .It is a very nice example. The factory built one also but it was cut up .
here is Derek Jetmars famous example..http://youtu.be/2WmZcn8Y-SM

Ahh yes, I had forgotten about those guys ( Christian Kromm?) but I remember the extent they have to get a reasonable pagoda shell to work with.
it's OK as curiosity machine and the feel of the m100's Torque would be amazing ,but the best alternative engines are the M117's .Especially a light alloy block engine like a 500 . Mechatronics M113 versions are a bit full under the bonnet ,even more so than a 6.3 .

for a Paltry EUR250K Plus you supply a Pagoda AND a 300sel6.3, and they will happily manufacture for you

By the power of greyskull that is a lot of money, with that amount of $$ I could build a large industrial warehouse and fill it full of neglected Finnie sedans - I could call it "The Pastelgrey Institute For Finnies That Haven't Been Looked After Good and Who Want To Be Made Good Again"...

But I digress... Last week I changed the oil and filter, flushed the fuel lines again (I think there may have been a little leftover fuel still in the tank as the premium unleaded I poured into the tank was yellow but the fuel coming out of the lines was orange-red). So with fresh oil, new filters I managed to get her running again with no smoke.

But the bigger issue is that I also have no oil pressure - I thought the gauge may be defective but I removed the gauge line on top of the oil filter and I could not get any oil to come out with the engine running - it should be absolutely pi$$ing out the top shouldn't it? The other really bad sign is that after changing the oil, running the car for a very short period and then checking the dipstick, I have a milky residue above the oil line which suggests I may have water in the oil. So it looks like this engine may be toast. However, this really doesn't bother me that much because....

- The current engine installation was botchy and untidy anyway
- I've negotiated with Dylan (Murky one) to buy his complete M180 220S engine & auto box which should bolt straight in
- Swapping engines out will give me a chance to detail the engine bay and the new motor/trans
- I think Dylans engine has a power steering pump, which will make a PS conversion much easier

For now I'm still in two minds as to go with the LPG or not, I think that I need to focus on getting a decent motor and trans installed first - depending on the results of the weber carby conversion on the 230S, I may just stick with a performance exhaust and twin webers for this car, LPG can always come later on. I think there is a W108 250SE at upullit lonsdale at the moment so I might go and grab the manifold from that and put it aside for future experiments.

Interesting to see the discussion on modified W110s vs W111s - I hadn't really thought about it much, but exterior mod wise, I definitely think you can get away with more on W110s (especially the later models) - it can be done nicely but it's a lot harder to get it right with a W111. Having the 190c and the 200D next to each other in the carport you would not think there was only two years difference between them - the 190 has much more of a late 50's/early 60's feel, jumping into the 200D feels like a leap of 8-10 years - maybe it's just because I've driven W123s, W114s and later benzes but it feels like a much more modern car despite the fact that changes between the 190 and the 200 were relatively minor and the sheetmetal is virtually the same.

I don't think the mags on that red 200D would have worked as well on a 190, who knows how it would look on a W111. The W111s have so much more ornamental chrome and different body proportions which affects the styling and they look really good with whitewalls and chrome hubcaps - having said that though I really like the way Drew's red W111 looks with the combination of metallic paint, dark tint and the choice of wheels. There is another bloke locally who has a white W111 220S and he has dechromed a lot of it, removed the top bumpers and fitted bundts which makes the car look a lot more simple and modern - put my 230S next to it and the 230S looks like the older car! Guess all lot of it comes down to personal opinion though... one person may think something looks faeces hot and someone else would think it just looks like faeces... and some people don't care (but those people usually drive a Hyunkiaton or something)

As for the W110 '630' from the ministry of silly cars - do you have any pics Drew? After 40 years of diesel power that car wouln't know what hit it! Hope they changed the diff!

No oil pressure at all usually means the relief valve is stuck wide open ( on the front of the block,you can remove it easily.) Some oil pressure means the bearings are shot. Unless it's like my diesel which has a newly reground crank with the wrong bearings fitted..LOL!.

This thread has been quiet for a while but I can assure you all I have been making progress! I managed to get the ignition switch re-keyed and remove all the dodgy wiring so that the car starts from the original plug starter switch again. New master cylinder is instaled but from my other recent post this didn't make any difference as the front calipers are screwed and the bleed nipple is missing. I've put 14x6 W108/114 rims on there with matching 050 white hubcaps and today for the first time since purchasing the car, I gave it a wash, cleaned the glass, wiped over and vacuumed out the interior and polished a few chrome bits. As you can see from the pics below, this has made an enormous difference to how the car looks!

The 14" rims look great and really are a better proportion for a car of this size.

After removing the lambswool seat covers which had disintegrated and were basically turning into dust as I pulled them off, I gave the seats just a quick wipe over with a damp cloth - the seat covers have done a great job in preserving the MB tex - no rips or fading and after I give them a good scrub to clean out some of the grime they will look like new!

The only original floor mat left in the car is the rear drivers side, but all the rubber/vinyl trim along the sills and over the trans tunnel is intact, so all I need to do interior wise (apart from a solid scrub) is make 4 new floor mats - easy!

So body wise after I fix the rust spots in the doors and the cracked paint on the boot there really is not much more I want to do, from a few test areas the paint will come up nicely with some gentle cut and polish. Later on down the track I want to give her a two tone treatment and was going to leave the top of the car in the original white and then maybe go for a yellow below the belt line (or we were discussing a green might go well with the brown interior too!).

Next job is to transport the car to the new house where it can meet all the other Finnies. I have a replacement engine, trans and a front end with good calipers on (courtesy of Murky_one) waiting for it as a 'welcome home' present!

I want to give her a two tone treatment and was going to leave the top of the car in the original white and then maybe go for a yellow below the belt line (or we were discussing a green might go well with the brown interior too!).

That's pretty much what I was originally thinking drew! Except white above the doors and roof and a bit more of a bolder and brighter yellow. I've seen plenty of '57 chevys with a similar yellow/white roof combo. I really wanted to use a DB colour but there was no yellow on the books for Finnies (that I could see).

I've had a look around and was thinking of 'Fantasiegelb' (Fantasy yellow) as seen on this 300SL:

300SL Fantasiegelb3.jpg

Not sure if it is the photo or whether the paint has that much green in it, I might have to get a test can mixed up and try a few panels.

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Time for an update - the direction of this project has changed significantly (hence the change of the thread title). I've decided to abandon the modified 6 cylinder idea and re-dieselize the old girl. Why? A number of reasons:

- Mercmad's rebuilt engine was too good to pass up
- I still really want a diesel Finnie, sofar the only ones I've seen come up for sale in the past year have been two wrecks in QLD, the only thing that has come close to a diesel Finnie here in SA is this 200D - so it looks like the only way to get one is to make it myself!
- Going back to a diesel engine and manual gearbox means that the car will be back to its factory configuration, so it will be eligible for historic rego - a 4 cylinder on historic will be around $450 per year cheaper in rego alone - my 230S is currently getting its new weber carbies so that will have to be my 'performance' finnie!
- Variety is nice, instead of having two 6 cylinder auto Finnies and 1 4 cyl manual I'll have one 4cyl diesel manual, one 4cyl petrol manual and 1 6 cyl petrol auto, so three cars with the same chassis but each giving a completely different driving experience.

Thanks to Ron I now have a rebuilt engine sitting in my shed, Ron did all the necessary engine work which involved new bearings and fixing the IP and then bench testing the engine. Last week I managed to score a 200D manual gearbox from an SA club member. The main issue I have now is how to get the new engine and gearbox to talk to each other - as this is a 220D engine (OM615) it will not bolt up to the original gearbox - so I need to do one of the following:
- Find a bellhousing from a W115 220D gearbox
- Find a complete W115 gearbox -(I'm not sure if the petrol and diesel engines had the same gearbox, maybe a W114 4 speed would fit)
- Someone suggested that I could change the back plate of the engine over, not sure if this would work though...

Seeing as there has already been a hole cut in the trans tunnel to fit the current t-bar auto shifter, I'm leaning towards the idea of fitting a 115 gearbox with a floor shift - as the 200D was available with a floor shift gearbox as a factory option this should still be ok for historic rego - and again this would be a little bit different as I already have one finnie with a column shift manual.

Anyway that's where I'm at now, at this stage though I'm in no rush to get this done as I still need to put some finishing touches to the 230S (weber carby conversion is in progress so I want to get that done and have the car back on the road first) - but now as we are approaching spring/summer I'm hoping I can get out and start preparing the new driveline so that the swap can be done sometime over summer.

Things are starting to move, I have the car up on stands ready to disconnect the tailshaft, trans mountings and other bits and this weekend I'm hoping to get the engine out. I have my 4-speed gearbox and thanks to MB spares I have a brand new clutch release yoke on the way. Plan is to remove the old engine and auto trans Saturday and then spend the next month tidying up the engine bay in readiness for the rebuilt OM615 and 4 speed to go in on the following tech day.

As an unexpected little bonus, I found something very useful tucked away around the neck of the fuel filler:

It's the original ymos key with the code stamped in - after a cleanup with the wire brush and some squirts of inox, I can now lock the boot! Another job off the list. I'm going to search through the boot very carefully now to see if an original door key is hidden in there too!

Friday evening I'd taken the radiator out and started disconnecting wiring and cables:

With help from Hendrik, CraigB and two other merc club members as part of our 'tech day' the rest went quickly! Fan, alternator, dizzy removed:

The hardest and most time consuming bits to remove/disconnect ended up being the exhaust (the two connections to the manifold were rusted tight) and the flex disc bolts - although this really didn't take too long. The rear muffler came off very easily.....

Before long everything was disconnected (and we didn't forget any cables, wires or hoses - how good are we!) and the motor was on the way out. We ended up removing the harmonic balancer in order to give enough room to get the m127 out of the shorter w110 engine bay!

Engine out and sitting on my handy trolley for easy moving!

Next big job is to clean, touch up and tidy the engine bay.

Job done! Time for some snags and a few bevvys.
The 200D looks like a mexican lowrider now without that huge 6 and auto in there!

Again a big thankyou to CraigB and Hendrik for coming and giving a hand!

Stay tuned for the next installment where I cover myself in grease and overspray...

I've been putting off the grotty job of scrubbing the engine bay down but will hopefully get stuck into it this weekend.

Today I went and had some DB050 white mixed up into a spray can for engine bay touch ups and also visited several wreckers and came away with some good finds for the 200D.

First stop was upullit elizabeth - there were only two mercs there - a W124 and a very nice W123 280E which had unfortunately been in a small front end ding. I managed to score two ATS 6.5" bundts off that car - it had two ATS and two genuine style Bundts on there. CraigB had given me two ATS 6.5s last year and I'd been keeping an eye out for two more so I was pretty stoked to grab the two today which have servicable tyres, plus 15 wheel studs for less than $100 all up. When I got them home all of the numbers match on the two rims from Craig and the two I just bought so I now have a matched set of rims! They are ET30 so should fit fine on the W110.

I managed to grab a gearbox crossmember from a 71 W108 280S at upullit gilman - this is necessary as the gearbox mountings are different on the Finnies and early 108s to the W114/115s and later 108s. The original crossmember is the one on the bottom:

One other issue I've noticed is that the bolts for the flex discs are different. The later flex discs have smaller bolts - so the bolts that were in there won't fit into the output of the gearbox. I might have to go back to upullit and grab the tailshaft from the 280S, unless there is another way??

Cheers for that Ron, I was wondering if that was possible so that's good news. I'd like to avoid changing tailshafts if I can! Fingers crossed it's still the right length seeing as it had an Auto in there before - but I couldn't see any evidence of it being modified.